Rebbe's sons' dispute goes against grain

Don't expect the two long-feuding sons of the late Williamsburg Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum to break bread together for Passover.

A technical religious dispute has erupted over bread itself, dividing the Satmar Hasidic community anew.

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Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum, the older brother, issued a new ruling in favor of Arizona-grown wheat's being acceptable for Passover matzo.

So Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum "automatically took the other side and didn't want anything to do with them," said one observer familiar with the community.

The Satmar community "always wants the best," said the observer, who asked not to be named. "They will be on the frum" - the most religious, in Yiddish - "side of the things."

The stakes are quite high.

Special dietary laws surrounding Passover require that the bread for the week-long holiday be made quickly to replicate the haste with which the Hebrew slaves fled Egypt in the Bible - the event the holiday commemorates. It must be made in 18 minutes. The requirements also include not allowing the dough to rise and keeping the wheat dry after it's harvested until the preparation begins.

"The question is how much dew there is in Arizona," said Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of the Orthodox Union, an organization that certifies food as kosher. "It's a new controversy."

Some say that it's not a problem.

"Our rabbi said [the Arizona wheat] is good. Actually, I was there at the cutting," said a man who answered the phone at Williamsburg's Pupa bakery, which along with a bakery in upstate Kiryas Joel, took the new wheat.

But the questions surrounding the wheat from the Grand Canyon State mean that some want to avoid the imported grain.

The Arizona harvest "wasn't done according to a high standard," said Rabbi Nat Fisher, 41, of Williamsburg. "I'm refraining from using it. If something is in question now, we don't use it," he added.